


After Words

by betweenfactandbreakfast



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Rimming, also, dorian and finian talk about their past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-01 23:56:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2792342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweenfactandbreakfast/pseuds/betweenfactandbreakfast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian Pavus, Inquisitor Lavellan, a tent, and some pent-up feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Words

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine they have a lot of fun in the inquisition camp tents (especially Emprise du Lion where its freezing cold) and keep everyone else awake all night. In other news this game & romance is ruining my life haha.

Sometimes they talk for hours after, late into the night, the first thought or question or conjecture forming before either of them have even had a chance to catch their breath. Other times they stay quiet, either because it’s just that sort of night, or they are too exhausted to do anything but curl up next to each other and drift off to sleep. Sometimes (although rarely) they fall into the loud sort of quiet, the kind that settles like a mantle on the shoulders and is impossibly weighty with things that need to be said but can't find an easy way out.

Tonight is one of the latter nights. The weather in Crestwood has been foul ever since they arrived, and shows no signs of letting up anytime soon. It had been a relief to pitch tents and remove their sodden clothing. Now, though, they stare up at the canopy of the tent, listening to the steady percussion of rain upon the canvas.

"I-" They both say at the same time. They look at each other and laugh- nervously, although it's not clear why.

"You first," Says Dorian

Finian props himself up on his elbows and looks at the other man thoughtfully. "Did you... have anyone? Back in Tevinter, I mean."

"Ha!" Dorian lets out the humourless laugh so typical of him. Finian is starting to learn, you see, to understand the complexities of Dorian Pavus (and very complex complexities they are). A snort of laughter can as much mean deep, ancient pain as much as it could genuine amusement. Get to know him well enough and you'll hear the difference.

"What?" Finian asks. He had not thought it so odd a question.

"Haven't I told you what life was like for me back home?" Dorian says, clasping his hands upon his stomach. "There were men, of course, but it was always a fleeting, secretive affair. A way to pass the time. "

"Nobody ever... stuck around?"

"No. Not for long, anyway. There were plenty of someone's, but you're the first one I-" Dorian pauses, breaks away, as he so often does when he's about to say something too revealing, too personal. "I mean, you're the longest. So far."

Finian nudges him gently. "Already planning to move on, are we?"

"That's not what I- Andraste's lacy garters, man, don't twist my words like that."

Finian kisses his shoulder.

"Anyway, why do you ask?" Dorian says, apparently deeming this an acceptable response. "Did you have someone, in your clan?"

"A wife and three kids." Finian says, and manages to contain his laughter for a whole five seconds of Dorian's stunned silence.

"You're an insufferable arse, you know that? Maker knows why I put up with you."

"Hopefully the Maker doesn't know _exactly_ why," Finian teases, tracing a thin white scar that criss-crosses Dorian's stomach with his finger.

"No," Dorian agrees. "And by all means continue with the heresy, but I notice you didn't answer me."

The elf heaves a sigh, pushes a strand of hair away from his sweaty forehead. "Sort of," He says at last. "I sort of had someone. A hunter from my clan."

"Sort of, is it?" Dorian asks. His expression says everything, understanding and sympathy; both have been navigating a myriad of 'sort of's and 'almost's their entire lives.

"Yeah," Finian says.

"If this is painful, we don't have to-"

"Nah, it's not that. It's just-" Finian grimaces. "I may not have a wife, but he did. Does."

"Oh," Dorian says.

"I'm not exactly proud of it." Finian looks away, biting his lip. "It's just, you know. Elves. We're dying out. Dalish even more so. Marriage isn't about love for elves, or even about status like in Tevinter, it's about survival. So people like Venariel, they get trapped, and-"

Dorian grasps his hand. "I understand."

"I know you do," Finian replies, lacing their fingers together. "But it wasn't good, what I did with Venariel. It wasn't honest, it felt...dirty. Not in a good way, either. I think I prefer this."

"Even if I am a human- and a Tevinter at that?" Asks Dorian.

"Even so. Besides, you humans have hair in strange and exotic places. It's like an adventure." Finian remarks.

"So I'm your exotic human adventure."

"Now who's twisting words?" Fixing him with a glare, Finian clambers over to straddle Dorian's waist. "You," He says, bending to kiss the other man. "Are my someone. For as long as you want to be."

"What if that's a really long time?" Dorian says, quietly. Timidly, almost. Strange from a man normally anything but timid.

"Then I guess I'm stuck with you." Finian says. "So make sure it's worth it."

"Is that a challenge, Lavellan?"

"I don't know, do you feel challenged?"

"Mostly I feel your bony arse on my-"

The rest of the undoubtedly eloquent sentence is interrupted by Finian pressing their lips together hotly, hand roughly cupping Dorian's chin.

Dorian sits up, hands travelling upwards along the curve of Finian's spine to tangle in his hair, tugging handfuls of raven curls loose from the knot they'd been bound in.   "I love this hair," He murmurs against Finian's collarbone as the elf (and his mouth) travel upwards along the side of his head scattering kisses in no discernible pattern. "It's absolutely mad, look at it. If you were an Orlesian noblewoman, imagine the poems they'd write."

"Do. You. Ever. Shut up?" Finian grinds out in between kisses.

"I enjoy the sound of my own voice, you must have noticed." Dorian replies. Finian tugs insistently at his earlobe with his teeth by way of reply. "Ugh, very well then." And with that, Dorian grasps the Herald of Andraste by the waist, swings him around and pins him down on his stomach.

"And unless I’m very much mistaken, you enjoy the sound of my voice too." Dorian murmurs, lips brushing the shell of Finian’s ear.

Finian wrinkles his freckled nose. "Less and less by the second. Get on with it."

"Yes, Oh Lord Inquisitor." Dorian mocks, propping himself back up with his hands. "I live to serve and venerate your Worship." He dips down and begins tracing a path down Finian's back with his lips, treading familiar roadways interconnected by freckles and scars and bruises, signs of his Inquisitor being so wonderfully real and vulnerable and- miraculously- alive.

Every swipe of his tongue is rewarded with a long, hissing exhalation from the writhing elf. Finian clamps his hands over Dorian's larger ones as they grasp his hips.

"So tell me," Dorian says, as if it is perfectly natural to start a conversation with someone right after you've had your face in their bum. "This Venariel..."

"Right now? We're doing this right now?" Finian twists to look over his shoulder in disbelief.

"Enquiring minds want to know," Dorian insists, dipping down again to resume his work.

"Want to know- ah, stop that, Fen'harel take you- want to know what?"

"If he ever did this for you."

"Once or twice."

"But I'm better."

"Possibly. The mustache tickles. Also you talk too much."

"He was the quiet, sensitive sort, then? Or stoic and manly, perhaps?"

"He- fuck- do we have to talk about this right now?"

Dorian makes a noise that approximates "Mhmm".

"Fine. He was nowhere near as handsome as you-" Finian does his best to speak between ragged gasps of breath.  "Not nearly as good in bed, and- and not. Nearly. As. _Clever_." There follows a stream of mingled elven curses which Dorian can't for the life of him separate into distinct words, let alone decipher.

"So I don't have to worry about him showing up one day and stealing your heart." Dorian says, a little later as he curls around the elf, tucking his hair to the side for better access to his neck.

"Hardly." Finian snorts. "I said he was trapped. I was just his escape. It was miserable, if you want the truth. I could never look his wife, Ria, in the eye, poor girl. She hadn't a clue. And I could never tell anyone, not even the Keeper... Elgar'nan, the way they'd look at me..."

Dorian slips his arms around Finian's middle, feeling every rib and ripple of lean muscle, the kind you wouldn't know was there unless you had explored quite thoroughly. "Well, you've told me."

"And how will you look at me?" Finian asks, turning over so that they are face to face.

Dorian gives him that look, that look brimming with tenderness and adoration and maybe even- no, Finian doesn't want to think about that just yet. "You know how, Amatus." Dorian says, and kisses the corner of his mouth, tongue flicking playfully at the gold ring Finian wears on his lower lip.

Finian closes his eyes, breathes in the scent of bergamot and spice (Cloves? Cardamom? He's still trying to pin it down.) that always clings to Dorian's skin.

Usually they fall asleep in a cozy arrangement, but it occurs to both of them at roughly the same time that this is the most intimate, the closest they've ever been while simply... lying there.

Neither one knows what to say or do about it so they just stay as they are, wrapped so tightly around each other you'd think they're likely to float away.


End file.
